07/09/2015

PvP Progress

All three of my level sixty Republic healers now have full sets of Dark Reaver gear, hurrah! I won't pretend that this is some great achievement, considering how easy Bioware made it to get PvP gear after 3.3's price reductions. But it was a goal that I had set myself, so I'm pleased to have reached it.

I've been doing slightly less PvP again lately, as my bucket list and a general desire to blow the dust off some low-level alts has reinvigorated my interest in questing. However, warzones are still unbeatable when it comes to passing a bit of time after a long day of work, when I don't have the mental capacity to pay attention to a story anymore. That's not to say that PvP is mindless, but it just doesn't tax my brain in quite the same way, you know?

The general feel of the warzones has largely been the same as always, sometimes fun, sometimes nasty. I see a lot of people complain about having PvE-geared players on their teams, which always makes me mad. PvP gear doesn't grow on trees, you know? And no, you can't expect people to have started at level ten. Are those who are only just starting out now supposed to play in their undies? That's not optimal anymore, you know. I should really be more outspoken about that. I'd hate to imagine people turning away from PvP purely because they receive such a rude welcome when they take their first steps into warzones.

The only thing that has seemed odd to me is that I've been getting what feels like tons of arena matches lately. I know that random numbers are random, but it's really been quite noticeable, to the point where I found myself wondering whether Bioware quietly tweaked the weighting of the numbers to make arena pops more frequent. I'm half tempted to start recording which maps I get and whether I win or lose, the way I did back in autumn 2013, just to see if there's any truth to it. However, back then I had a lot more time to play - I don't think I'd be able to knock out a hundred matches in only three weeks these days.

PvP story of the month (which actually happened a couple of weeks ago already): I'm sure we all know that feeling of having a personal nemesis in a warzone. If you're a dps, maybe there's a particularly squishy player on the other team whom you like to chase whenever you see his name come up. If you're a healer like me, there'll be games when someone decides to attack and harass you from the first second you meet until the end of the game. It can be annoying, but it's part of the game.

What I hadn't experienced before was that someone made it oddly... personal. Specifically, there was this Marauder in a Hypergates match that kept coming after me even when it seemed to serve no tactical purpose anymore and kept talking to me in /say about how he just wanted my love, our love was eternal etc. It was kind of funny, but also sort of awkward since I didn't know him at all and you never know what kind of weirdo you might have just run into. I was kind of glad that he whispered me from a Republic alt after the
match, which served to reassure me that it had just been a silly bit of fun.

Also, I keep meeting this guy in warzones. After the third time or so I whispered him to ask him what in the world had possessed him to name his character after Joffrey Baratheon of all people? (For those who don't know, he's one of the most outright despicable and unsympathetic characters in Game of Thrones/ASOIAF.) He never replied.

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